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Karen piqued my interest and my memory with her comment on the Eggs, Nineteenth Century Style post of a few days ago. She mentioned a Curried Egg recipe from the marvellous, inimitable M.F.K. Fisher’s An Alphabet for Gourmets with the wonderful name of Hindu Eggs. I remembered then a Curried Eggs recipe from my childhood in England – a dreadful mess of hard-boiled eggs and apples which I could never quite fathom.

Curried Eggs are, like kedgeree, mulligatawney soup, and ‘devilled’ dishes an Anglo-Indian concept that is a legacy of the British Empire. Curried Eggs intersect at some point with ‘Devilled’ Eggs, and the distinction seems to be that the devilled version contains cayenne pepper (plus perhaps other savoury ingredients such as anchovy sauce) and is ‘dry’, whereas the curried version includes ‘curry powder’ and has a sauce or ‘gravy’. The curry powder may be in the eggs or the sauce. These ‘distinctions ’ only serve to highlight the decidedly Anglo-Indian concept of ‘curry’ itself of course.

Karen’s comment set me on a trail in search of historic recipes for Curried Eggs, and I now pass on my findings (to date) for your enjoyment.

Mrs Beeton (1861) does not have a recipe for Curried Eggs, which is perhaps surprising. The earliest recipe I have found to date is from the 1870’s (I am sure there will be earlier ones, and I eagerly await your comments). I rediscovered the recipe for Hindu Eggs (1949), thanks to Karen, and also found a version of my childhood nightmare, complete with apples.

1870’s:

Today, February 21st …

The Rotary Club of Nottingham, England held a dinner on this day in 1927, and the club members were addressed by a past president of the Sheffield Rotary Club. It appears that Mr. A. Peters had visited China, for he regaled them with some details of a banquet at which the food seemed most strange to those most English of gentlemen. The address was reported in the newspaper the following day:

‘The following menu of a banquet in China was given … thousand year old eggs, mussels in custard, slugs and seaweed, sharks’ fins, ducks’ giblets, and bamboo sprouts. … Regarding the eggs, Mr. Peters said they might have been only 100, 50, or 10 years old, but that was their title, and they were black. Eating bamboo sprouts was like chewing a walking-stick.’

‘Eating bamboo sprouts was like chewing a walking-stick’ – did Mr. Peters actually attend this banquet? Or, more to the point, did he attend but avoid the bamboo sprouts? Or was he simply telling English gentlemen what they wanted to hear - that Oriental gentlemen really had some odd eating (and presumably other) habits, which clearly indicated a strange (and inferior) culture?

Perhaps Mr. Peters hadn’t the faintest idea what bamboo was, and read up the Oxford English Dictionary beforehand? If he did, he would have discovered that it was ‘A genus of giant-grasses (genus Bambusa), numerous species of which are common throughout the tropics. Also the stem of any of these used as a stick, or as material’. ‘What a good line!’ he may have thought ‘Those strange Chinese eat what we use as walking sticks’.

The first reference to bamboo as a culinary item in the OED is as late as 1889, and it is from none other than Rudyard Kipling, who travelled widely and it appears with an open mind. In Sea to Sea, he describes a meal that includes bamboo-shoots – although this takes place in Japan, not China.

‘After raw fish and mustard-sauce came some other sort of fish cooked with pickled radishes, and very slippery on the chopsticks. The girls knelt in a semicircle and shrieked with delight at the Professor’s clumsiness, for indeed it was not I that nearly upset the dinner table in a vain attempt’ to recline gracefully. After the bamboo-shoots came a basin of white beans in sweet sauce—very tasty indeed. Try to convey beans to your mouth with a pair of wooden knitting-needles and see what happens. Some chicken cunningly boiled with turnips, and a bowlful of snow-white boneless fish and a pile of rice, concluded the meal. I have forgotten one or two of the courses, but when O-Toyo handed me the tiny lacquered Japanese pipe full of hay-like tobacco, I counted nine dishes in the lacquer stand—each dish representing a course. Then O-Toyo and I smoked by alternate pipefuls.

My very respectable friends at all the clubs and messes, have you ever after a good tiffin lolled on cushions and smoked, with one pretty girl to fill your pipe and four to admire you in an unknown tongue? You do not know what life is. I looked round me at that faultless room, at the dwarf pines and creamy cherry blossoms without, at O-Toyo bubbling with laughter because I blew smoke through my nose, and at the ring of Mikado maidens over against the golden-brown bearskin rug. Here was colour, form, food, comfort, and beauty enough for half a year’s contemplation.’

America appears to have been far more broad-minded about Chinese cuisine than the English – probably because of it had a significant Chinese population. There were even a few cookbooks featuring Chinese recipes published in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1914 the Chinese-Japanese Cook Book was published in America. The authors acknowledged that the recipes were modifications of ‘native dishes’, so that they would appeal to the Western palate – which pretty well excluded recipes for thousand-year old eggs it seems, for there are none in the book. There is however a very elegant and elegantly-named recipe for stuffed eggs, which I give below. American palates were also clearly not intimidated by edible walking sticks, and several recipes include bamboo shoots.

Tamago Bolan (Peony Eggs)
Boil five eggs hard. Place in cold water. Remove shells carefully, so as not to blemish whites. Carefully cut off top with thread, one end between teeth, the other between fingers, drawing thread through egg. Remove the yolks. Boil a small pink snapper (fish) in hot water for ten minutes, or steam for thirty. Remove all bones and fins, and chop together until fine. Mix with finely mashed miso, pepper, and salt. Chop yolks daintily and fluffily, and mix with fish meat. Fill the whites with this mixture. Now place the filled whites in center of a lettuce head and arrange fine strips of udo shoots round it. To fix lettuce head properly, all the leaves should be carefully adjusted and separated, washed, and then put back into shape again. It looks now like a bouquet, and is held together with toothpicks.

[UPDATE: Helen in Japan informs me "thought you'd like to know that the Japanese for peony is "botan" rather than "bolan". Worn type in an old book could easily produce a misreading, even supposing it got into the original source correctly! I'm not familiar with this particular dish, though the minced fish sounds very similar to an Edo period recipe I have for "strawberries" in soup - the strawberries are formed from a paste of minced prawns and served in clear soup with a few greens at the top of each strawberry. In the order, "Botan Tamago" the name is more commonly given these days to an egg poached in a paper cocotte or fried so that the white forms soft "petals" around the yolk."

Thanks to Helen for this. I have checked the online cookbook at the Feeding America site, and it does say "bolan" - so a typo, OCR error or translation error? ]

Fried Bamboo Shoots.
Take one can of bamboo shoots and drain off all water. Wipe the bamboo shoots dry, and slice in long thin strips. Have ready boiling peanut oil, and toss the shoots into that. Cook until crisp. Delicious. Must be eaten hot.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Grapefruit with Oysters?

On this Topic …

The Chinese-Japanese Cook Book can be found online at the Feeding America site. We have considered ‘Chop Suey’ in an earlier story, in which we included several other recipes from this interesting cookbook.

A Previous Story for this Day …

We discussed the Shrove Tuesday tradition of the Pancake Race on this day last year.

Quotation for the Day …

You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting needles. Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food.

Today, April 3rd …

Ann Frank was thirteen-years old in July 1942 when she and her family attempted to escape Nazi persecution in Amsterdam by going into hiding in a “Secret Annexe” in her father’s office building. Friends and employees of her father supplied them with whatever spare food they could obtain. They lived in the hidden rooms for two years.

On this day in 1944 Anne commented about the tedium of some of their meals. A little over two years after this diary entry, Ann was dead – a victim of typhus in the infamous Bergen-Belsen camp where she was sent after her family was betrayed and their hiding place discovered.

“In the twenty one months that we've spent here we have been through a good many 'food cycles'...periods in which one has nothing else to eat but one particular dish or kind of vegetable. We had nothing but endive for a long time, day in, day out, endive with sand, endive without sand, stew with endive, boiled or 'en casserole;' then it was spinach, and after that followed kohlrabi, salsify, cucumbers, tomatoes, sauerkraut, etc., each according to the season.”

Ann would have been in no confusion about ‘endive’. Greengrocers in different locations nowadays might call it ‘chicory’, but other greengrocers might sell a thick root vegetable by the name of ‘chicory’. Sometimes ‘witloof’ and ‘escarole’ get into the confusion act too. We might also have to factor in the translator’s error or opinion as well when we consider Ann’s endive dinners. This sort of confusion is begging for some clarification, so here is my attempt to set myself straight.

Firstly, both endive (Cichorium endiva) and chicory (Cichorium intybus) are members of the same family, as their name suggests. Endive is grown and eaten for its leaves, which have two main forms – curly and broad-leafed. This is where confusion number one turns up. In the USA the curly form is often called chicory, and the broad-leafed form is often called escarole. Whatever it is called, endive is used in salads, or cooked as one would spinach.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is a popular salad vegetable in Europe, particularly when the tight leafy heads are ‘forced’ (grown in the dark). Confusion number two is that this form is called ‘witloof’ or Belgian or French Endive. The root of the chicory plant is also cooked as one would any other root vegetable, and it has had a starring role as a coffee substitute (‘ersatz’ coffee), coffee alternative (supposedly healthier), or coffee additive.

In 1915 a collection of recipes provided by Belgian refugees was published under the title The Belgian Cook-Book in England. The Belgians know all about endive.

Flemish Endive

Today, April 12th ...

Here is a selection of recipes for ‘other’ eggs, as you may be getting bored with the hen variety. They are all from the exhaustive and ever-reliable Cassells Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s).

Eggs, Plovers.
These eggs are much esteemed for their rich flavour, and the beautiful colour of the white part, which is much used for decorating salads. When boiled hard they are eaten hot or cold; but with a good brown gravy or some béchamel sauce they make a dainty breakfast dish.

Eggs, Swan’s (en Salade).
Cut the eggs, when boiled hard (see Eggs, Swan’s to Boil), in halves, pound the yolks with an ounce and a half of good fresh butter, and season with minced herbs or shallot, cayenne, and salt; add two teaspoonfuls of essence of anchovies, and the same of chili vinegar. Fill the white halves with this mixture, and set them in a bowl of prepared salad, or ornament a lobster or German salad with them.

Eggs, Swan’s, To Boil.
Put the eggs into quite boiling water and let them stay without boiling for twenty minutes. See that the water quite covers them, then boil slowly for a quarter of an hour. Let them rest in the water five minutes before removing them, and cover them up while cooling. Swan’s eggs retain their heat a long time. They should not be cut until quite cold, and should then be divided into halves lengthwise.

Eggs, Turkey’s, To Dress.
Choose those of the young bird for cooking in the shell. They may be known by their pale, almost white colour. The larger ones are excellent for poaching, and to serve in the composition of any dishes where eggs are required. Time, six minutes to boil, four to poach.

19th C Egg recipes from previous stories:

To dress a Military Omelet (c. 1845)
To cook eggs in the shell, without boiling them. (1845)
Eggs with Burnt Butter (Soyer, 1853)
To Roast Eggs. (1875)
Eggs en Surprise [1832]
Birds’ Nests (same as Scotch Eggs) [1893]

Last year on this Day ...

We found out about the first pressure cooker.

Today February 27th …

The much-loved American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day in 1807. One of his most popular works is The Song of Hiawatha. Hiawatha is an Ojibway Indian who is reared by his grandmother Nokomis when his mother Wenonah dies of heartbreak at being abandoned by her husband Mudjekewis. When he is a man, Hiawatha sets out to find his father and avenge his mother’s death. The Song of Hiawatha is the story of his adventures, his love for the beautiful Minnehaha, and his realisation that the Indian must accept and befriend the White Man, because he has come to stay.

In the poem - one of the first to take Native Americans as its theme - he describes the feast prepared by Hiawatha’s grandmother Nokomis at his marriage to his beloved Minnehaha (Laughing Water).

XI. Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast.

Sumptuous was the feast Nokomis
Made at Hiawatha's wedding;
All the bowls were made of bass-wood,
White and polished very smoothly,
All the spoons of horn of bison,
Black and polished very smoothly.
She had sent through all the village
Messengers with wands of willow,
As a sign of invitation,
As a token of the feasting;
And the wedding guests assembled,
Clad in all their richest raiment,
Robes of fur and belts of wampum,
Splendid with their paint and plumage,
Beautiful with beads and tassels.
First they ate the sturgeon, Nahma,
And the pike, the Maskenozha,
Caught and cooked by old Nokomis;
Then on pemican they feasted,
Pemican and buffalo marrow,
Haunch of deer and hump of bison,
Yellow cakes of the Mondamin,
And the wild rice of the river.
But the gracious Hiawatha,
And the lovely Laughing Water,
And the careful old Nokomis,
Tasted not the food before them,
Only waited on the others
Only served their guests in silence.

In one of his adventures Hiawatha triumphs over the corn spirit Mondamin who has challenged him, and as a reward receives a gift which becomes ‘the friend of man’ - a plant with green robes and ‘soft yellow tresses’. Maize. The Yellow Cakes of the Mondamin then, are Corn Cakes.

Maize, thanks to the Native Americans they met, certainly also proved to be the friend of the early settlers who would have starved without it. None of the cookbooks they took with them from England would have had recipes for maize, for it is a truly American plant. It was not until 1796 that the first American cookbook was published, but it did include a recipe for corn cakes.

Indian Slapjack.
One quart milk, 1 pint Indian meal, 4 eggs, 4 spoons of flour, little salt, beat together, baked on gridles or fry in a dry pan or baked in a pan which has been rub’d with suet, lard or butter.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Food for Motoring.

A Previous Story for this Day …

The story last year was called 'Tuppence for Mutton'

On this Topic ...

If your interest in Native American Cuisine is piqued, and you would like to know more, go on over to Native American Cuisine and you will find out a lot more.

Quotation for the Day ...

“When you ask one friend to dine,
Give him your best wine !
When you ask two,
The second best will do”
Longfellow.

Today, April 13th ...

First: Eggs Whisked, not Stirred:

The writer Ian Fleming’s first novel – Casino Royale – was published on this day in 1953, which, as it turns out, is very timely during our Egg Week. The chief protagonist in the novel is of course James Bond, whose exploits as Agent 007 of the British Secret Service were continued in further novels by Fleming, and subsequently by numerous movie-makers. James Bond almost singlehandedly saves Britain in particular and the world in general from a series of dastardly bad guys without pausing in his womanising or compromising in his martini standards. It is well known that his signature drink is the vodka martini, which he insists is “shaken, not stirred”, but what is less well known is that his favourite meal is scrambled eggs. Ian Fleming let this little secret out in a short story called “007 in New York”, which appeared in some editions of an anthology called “Thrilling Cities”. He even gave the recipe:

“ . . The Edwardian Room at The Plaza, a corner table. They didn't know him there, but he knew he could get what he wanted to eat - not like Chambord or Pavillon with their irritating Wine and Foodsmanship and, in the case of the latter, the miasma of a hundred different women's scents to confound your palate. He would have one more dry martini at the table, then smoked salmon and the particular scrambled eggs he had once (Felix Leiter knew the head-waiter) instructed them how to make:

For four individualists:
12 fresh eggs
Salt and pepper
5-6 oz. of fresh butter.

Break the eggs into a bowl. Beat thoroughly with a fork and season well. In a small copper (or heavy bottomed saucepan) melt four oz. of the butter. When melted, pour in the eggs and cook over a very low heat, whisking continuously with a small egg whisk.
While the eggs are slightly more moist than you would wish for eating, remove the pan from heat, add rest of butter and continue whisking for half a minute, adding the while finely chopped chives or fines herbes. Serve on hot buttered toast in individual copper dishes (for appearance only) with pink champagne (Taittinger) and low music.”

Secret Agents must sometimes resort to disguise, which can also be a fun thing for an egg to do, as in this recipe by those elegant ladies Leyel and Hartley in The Gentle Art of Cookery (1925).

Eggs in Overcoats.
Six eggs and the whites of two more, six large potatoes, six tablespoonfuls of minced ham, two tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, three tablespoonfuls of cream, salt and pepper.
Bake the potatoes; cut a piece off the top of each and scoop out the inside. Mash it with a little hot milk. Add the minced ham, parsley, cream and butter, salt and pepper, and bind the mixture with the well-beaten whites of two eggs. Line the potato skins with the mixture.
Poach six eggs lightly, put a poached egg into each potato, cover each potato with the mashed potato mixture, and bake till this is brown.

This dish is also a Double Agent as it could just as easily sneak into the Potato Recipe archive, could it not?

20th C Egg Recipes from previous stories:

Eggs cooked with Marigold (1925)
Devilled Eggs. (1925)
Eggs en Surprise [1912]
Beauregard Eggs [1911]
Egg and Potato Scallop [1911]
Tamago Bolan (Peony Eggs) [1914]

This Day Last Year ...

The American explorers Lewis and Clark ate dog meat on this day.

Today, April 11th ...

Still on our egg theme, and with minimal commentary due to TOF being TNM (The Nurse-Maid) to TOC (The Old Curmudgeon) who has a broken right shoulder due to his efforts to get fit by riding his bicycle at great speed, weather not permitting (i.e drizzly rain).

So - here we are already in the eighteenth century, with a selection of egg recipes quite unlike those in modern textbooks.

First, from a French cookbook:

Eggs after the German Mode.
Break some Eggs into a dish, as it were au Miroir, and put a little Peas-soop therein: mix two or three Yolks with a little Milk, and strain them through a Sieve: Then take away the Broth in which the Eggs were dress’d, put the Yolks upon them with some scraped Cheese, and give them a good Colour.
[The court and country cook ; Massialot; 1702]

Eggs after the Burgundian Way.
Take a piece of red Beet, that has not an earthy or unsavoury tast, and pound it well with a slice of Lemmon, a few Macaroons, Sugar, and beaten Cinnamon: Then taking four or five Eggs, without the Sperm, mix all together very well, and strain them thro’ the Hair-sieve, with a little Milk and Salt. Afterwards they may be dress’d in the same manner as Eggs with Milk, and brought to a fine colour.
[The court and country cook ; Massialot; 1702]

And now from an English book, a recipe with an interesting name:

A Pallateen* of Eggs.
Beat twelve Eggs, and take out the Crumb of a Penny Loaf, add to it a Jill of Rhenish Wine, and mix it well with the Eggs; boil six Artichokes, take the Bottoms and cut small, and mix with the Eggs; season them with Mace, Nutmeg, and Salt, and mix them all well together: Grease a round Bason that will just hold them, and pour them into it, lay three thin Slices of Butter over all, and set it an Hour in a slow Oven; then take half a Hundred fresh Oysters and wash them clean in Water, lay them on a clean Board, and season them with Black-pepper and Salt, and drudge some Flour over them; then take a Quarter of a Pound of Butter in a clean Frying-Pan over a clear Stove or brisk Fire, let the butter be brown when you put in the Oysters, and turn them; then add to them half a Jill of Water, a Spoonful of Catchup, and thicken it with Flour and Butter; then turn the Eggs out of the Bason on the middle of the Dish, pour over it the Ragoo: Garnish with Barberry-berries and Parsely, and send it up.
[Professed Cookery …; Ann Cook; 1760’s]

*Pallateen references the Palatine Hill in Rome, therefore suggests things Imperial and Grand. Makes a change from “Royal” I guess.

And finally, from Hannah Glasse’s well known cookbook, a recipe that seems anything but “Plain and Easy”

A Ragoo of Eggs.
Boil twelve Eggs hard, take off the Shells, and with a little Knife very carefully cut the White a cross long-ways, so that the White may be in two halves, and the Yolk whole. Be very careful neither to break the Whites, nor Yolks, take a quarter of a Pint of Pickle Mushrooms chopped very fine, half an Ounce of Truffles and Morells, boiled in three or four Spoonfuls of Water, save the Water and chop the Truffles and Morells very small, boil a little Parsley, chop it fine, mix them together with the Truffle Water you saved, grate a little Nutmeg in, a little beaten Mace, pu it into a Sauce-pan with three Spoonfuls of Water, a Gill of Red Wine, one Spoonful of Ketchup, a Piece of Butter, as big as a large Wallnut, rolled in Flour, stir all together and let it boil. In the meantime get ready your Eggs, lay the Yolks and Whites in Order in your Dish, the hollow Parts of the Whites uppermost, that they may be filled, take some Crumbs of Bread, and fry them brown and crisp, as you do for Larks, with which fill up the Whites of the Eggs as high as they will lye, then pour in your Sauce all over, and garnish with fry’d Crumbs of Bread. This is a very genteel pretty Dish, if it be well done.
[Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy ..; Hannah Glasse; 1747]

18th C Egg recipes from previous stories:

To broil Eggs.(1747)

Last year, on This Day ..

We had a story about sauerkraut

Today, April 10th ...

As explained yesterday, this weeks posts will be minimalist - the recipes must speak for themselves. The first two speak strangely to us today, but the other two - minus the sugar - sound quite acceptable to the modern palate.

The manner how to make an Egge Tart with Apples.
Put into a Porrenger or Dish the bigness of two eggs, or a little more of the mellow part of a roasted Apple, adde thereunto two spoonfuls of fine flower, five or six eggs, and some salt at your own discretion, dissolve and beat all these together, until such time as the flower be well incorporated with the other ingredients, pour this mixture into a Tart-pan or Skillet, or in a Dish, in which you shall have dissolved the bignesse of an egge, or thereabouts of fresh butter; cover your Tart-pan, and put upon it some fire, and cover also the lid with a few embers, and after a quarter of an hour or a little more you must uncover your Tart-pan, to see whether your Cake be baked, and whether it be sufficiently coloured both above and below, and if you find it to bee so you may dish it up, and serve it to the Table, after you have powdered it with some sugar, and sprinkled it with some rose-water, & stuck into it some few slices of preserved Lemmon-peels.
Observe that instead of the mellow of Apples, to make a variety of the said Tarts, you may take the mellow of Pomkins, or of any other fruit you have a mind to, so you do first boyl or bake it before you make use of it to make your Tart or Cake withall, according to the former prescriptions in the foregoing Chapter.
[The Perfect Cook ( Patissier françois); Marnette; 1656]

To dress Eggs in the Spanish Fashion, called, wivos me quidos.
Take twenty eggs fresh and new, and strain them with a quarter of a pint of sack, claret, or white wine, a quartern of sugar, some grated nutmeg, and salt; beat them together with the juyce of an orange, and put to them a little musk, (or none) set them over the fire, and stir them continually till they be a little thick, (but not too much), serve them with scraping sugar being put in a clean warm dish, on fine toasts of manchet soaked in juyce of orange and sugar, or in claret, sugar, or white wine, and shake the eggs with orange comfits, or muskedines red and white.
[The accomplisht cook; Robert May; 1660]

To dress poached Eggs.
Take a dozen of new laid eggs, and the meat of four or five partridges, or any roast poultrey, mince it as small as you can, and season it with a few beaten cloves, mace, and nutmeg, put them into silver dish with a ladle full or two of pure mutton gravy, and two or three anchoves dissolved, then set it a stewing on a chafing dish of coals; being half stewed, as it boils put in the eggs one by one, and as you break them, put by most of the whites, and with one end of your egg-shell put in the yolks round in order amongst the meat, let them stew till the eggs be enough, then put in a little grated nutmeg, and the juyce of a couple of oranges, put not in the seeds, wipe the dish, and garnish it with four or five whole onions boild and broild.
[The accomplisht cook; Robert May; 1660]

To make an Amalet [omelet]
Take ten eggs, and more than half the whites, beat them very well, and put in a spoonful or two of cream, then heat some butter in your frying pan, and when it is hot, put in your eggs and stir them a little, then fry them till you find they are enough, and a little before you put them out of the pan, turn both the sides over that they may meet in the middle, and lay it the botome upwards in the dish, serve it in with verjuice, butter and sugar.
[Cook’s Guide; Hannah Wooley; 1664]

17th C egg recipes from previous posts:
Bacon Froise. (1695)
To dress Eggs called in French Ala Augenotte, or the Protestant way.(1682, Rabisha)

Last year on this Day ...

By co-incidence, the story last year was about a dinner held in the seventeenth century.

Today, January 30th …

The Crown Prince of Austria, Rudolph Habsburg, and his beautiful seventeen year old mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera died on this day in 1889 in what may have been a double suicide, a murder-suicide (with either Rudolph or Mary being the murderer), or a politically motivated assassination. The subsequent publicity was a masterpiece of cover-up and spin-doctoring, as would be expected from an Imperial family, and the response was speculation and rumour of epic proportions. Officially Rudolph died from “apoplexy of the heart” - a complication, no doubt of the large bullet hole in his chest. Mary was not mentioned at all; officially, she was never there.

It is not only the motive that is in doubt. Mary may or may not have been pregnant (and if she was she may have died as the result of a botched abortion), and she may have been shot in the head or beaten to death (her body disappeared for a while, and the rediscovered body, may not have been the same as the one buried with her name on it, and it is not certain which of the two was the real one anyway). She may or may not have poisoned Rudolph, although again, this does not explain the bullet-hole in his body.

In the midst of such controversy, it is comforting to find that there is no dispute about their last meal together. Rudolph and Mary were at Mayerling, the royal hunting lodge in the Vienna woods (now a Carmelite convent). On that last night his valet served them a meal of pheasant with fresh mushrooms, leeks, and baked potatoes, with two bottles of Tokay on the side.

Not a bad final meal, planned or not, and surely more elegant than the usual American prisoners’ death-row requests for hamburger or pizza!

Here is a pheasant dish from a titled gentleman of the same era : the Baron Brisse, from his book “366 menus and 1200 recipes”.

Stewed Pheasant.
Truss the pheasant for boiling, lard it with fine strips of bacon, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and mixed spice; be careful to lard even the legs, cover with slices of bacon, and place in a stew-pan lined with bacon; moisten with equal quantities of white wine, and stock, and simmer for two hours; when done, drain the pheasants, remove the slices of bacon, and dish up covered with game sauce.

Enjoy with the Tokay!

Tomorrow: Cheating and eating.

Today, January 27th …

This day in 1860 was the birthday of Sir George Sitwell, father of the writers Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell, and a superb example of an aristocratic eccentric in a country that excels in them. It might be truer, but less kind, to say his hold on reality was tenuous all his life. When he was a child travelling with his nurse, he announced to another passenger "I am Sir George Sitwell, baronet. I am four years old and the youngest baronet in England." Like all true eccentrics, he never achieved the capacity to see himself as others saw him.

Aristocratic birth and wealth facilitate eccentricity of course, as they allows the pursuit of bizarre whims and strange projects, and George had many of them. He was a prolific writer (although only one book was published), genealogist, antiquarian, and inventor of all sorts of oddities such as a musical toothbrush, a small gun for shooting wasps, and a convenient travel food which he called “The Sitwell Egg”. The “yolk” was made of smoked meat, the “white” made of rice, and a shell of synthetic lime. He supposedly arrived unannounced at the office of Sir Gordon Selfridge, wearing his usual silk hat and frock coat and saying “I am Sir George Sitwell, and I have brought my egg with me”. Sir Gordon may have been amused, but he was not impressed: Selfridges did not subsequently stock the Sitwell egg.

George firmly believed that everything was done better in the past, so perhaps his inspiration came from one of the “illusion foods” of Medieval times, such as this Lenten Egg from a fifteenth century English manuscript.

Eggs in Lent.
Take eggs, and blow out that is within at the other end; then wash the shell clean in warm water; then take good milk of almonds, and set it on the fire; then take a fair canvas, & pour the milk thereon, & let run out the water; then take it out of the cloth, & gather it together with a platter; then put sugar enough thereto; then take half of it, & color it with saffron, a little, & powdered cinnamon; then take & do the white in the nether end of the shell, & in the middle the yolk, & fill it up with the white; but not too full, then set it in the fire & roast it, & serve forth.

On Monday: Dinner with the Crown Prince.